LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-April

by Rebecca Falzano

Photography Jarrod McCabe

A world without art.
Who could imagine such spiritual deprivation?

We certainly can’t. That’s why we devote so much of our coverage each month to art, and when April comes around, we publish an issue that is simply boiling over with it. This issue is that issue: welcome to the 2011 Art Issue. We have big shoes to fill—our own. Last year’s MH+D Art Issue earned us a silver Folio Eddie Award for editorial excellence. We were honored and inspired to make this year’s even better.
Of course, our Art Issues are never just about art itself. They’re also about those who create it. Collect it. Curate it. About the wonderful, vice-like grip art exercises over those who pursue it and admire it. And about homeowners who make art as integral to the fabric of their homes as the walls, floors, and ceilings.
The works on the following pages take many forms—photography, sculpture, paintings, drawings, video, mixed-media. All of them share a common start inside the minds of talented individuals who are connected to Maine in some way—either because they’ve lived here, worked here, or have been inspired by the things that make up this place.
We salute the artists in this issue, and the many more we couldn’t fit on our pages, who make our environment more beautiful, who evoke emotion, and elicit a response, while expressing their own. These are artists who give a piece of themselves to everything they create—and who, by the very act of daring to create, invite critique.   
This reminds us that creating this magazine is an art. Our team of designers, writers, editors, photographers, stylists, and curators give themselves to these pages. Every month, we start with a blank canvas and work to bring what’s in our heads into your hands. We perform juggling acts; we add, subtract, fine tune, rearrange, step away from it, sleep on it, polish it off, and then—best of all—put it out into the world. We’ve approached this issue like a curator would approach an exhibition, looking for a carefully considered blend of works and artists who, together and separately, say something about Maine and more broadly, about life.
We hope you look at this issue the way you look at the art we’ve selected for it:  with an appreciation for not just what your eyes take in, but the process and passion behind it all—the magical thing that happens when we listen to the heart’s call to create.

Rebecca Falzano
Managing Editor
[email protected]